Web 2.0 according to Ricardo Baeza, Yahoo! researcher

April 1, at 12.30 p.m., Ricardo Baeza-Yates, researcher and director of Yahoo! Research in Barcelona and Santiago de Chile, came to UAB to give a conference about Web 2.0

It was quite interesting as he talked about which is the tendency of Internet in the following years. The keyword must be Web 2.0.

I took some notes, you can read them below:

- The start was an introduction of how fast is the Internet growing nowadays. It’s growing exponentially and I’m pretty sure that you all know what it means. Simply awesome! One data which caught my attention was that Apache Server is more popular than Microsoft Servers.

After that, he told us which is the tendency of Internet users:

• Get some acknowledgement.
• Access to your own life aorund the world… Just a few clicks far!

We can call this social media.

- The answer at the question What is web 2.0?

Ok, everybody is talking about web 2.0, the new Internet… But what does it exactly mean? Let’s go back some years ago… At the very first of Internet. Webpages were static. You may be asking yourself, and what the hell static means?! Tell me something comprehensible! Ok, Ok! Static page was the website which you “could only read” it…That is to say, you couldn’t post a threat nor a comment, etc. Only the very owner (called webmaster) could edit it. So, web 2.0 is the new wave of websites, those where you can post, comment, write… Some examples are this blog, fotolog, youtube, social networks (facebook)…

These sites are not created by companies, users have created them instead! Uploading their photos, videos, experiences and so on! We can conclude that web 2.0 is the new kind of website: The one which has been created by the users themselves.

- Social networks, as we have said before, are one of the last tendencies. Facebook has been designed by a young boy… One of the richest in the world in just a few years. But why is facebook so much popular? The word is innovation. After that, a lot of social networks have raised… This, combined with blogs, etc., makes web 2.0, what we were talking before. Another data: Most of the people who visit social networks are the youth.

- Richard went ahead talking a bit about blogs because they are a very important piece in Internet nowadays. The first ones were created in California/Texas/Florida in 2004. About 75 per cent are people between 16 and 24 years old.

- The clue of the success in web 2.0:

For instance, flickr (programmed just with 10 developers!!).

• Content generated by users.
• Content reviewed by the users themselfs.
• Content distributed by users.
• The capability of add plugins which are created by users, in other ways, be able to customize whatever you want.

If you analysize this list is very easy to realize that the most important thing are the users. You can a ppreciate that in the images below (sorry if they are a bit… Pathetic… It’s the work in five minutes with paint haha)

1. 10 years ago
2. Internet nowadays
3. Future Internet

1)

2)

3)

How can we arrive at the last picture? What does it mean? In the future Internet, a webmaster is in the same level as users (consumers). When this time comes… It will be called web 3.0. Isn’t it weird, to talk about web 3.0, when we are just starting with web 2.0 (web 2.0 beta)?

- The main problem, even though it seems it ain’t relation, fall into search engines. Because if somebody can find what they are searching for, it is thanks to the users experiences. Which means, that consumers have to contribute with contents too… Coming from they own experiences as we have said. But as we were saying, the problem remains in SE.

But it’s not so simple. If somebody jot down Do you know a good mechanic in London? Honestly, how how do you think that yahoo can interpretate this information? Questions aren’t right. Which means, if we extrapolate this information, that the user will not found what he was searching for, and consequently, yahoo can’t get more information and improve their system for better consults in a near future. Otherwise, if we ask properly: mechanic in London, it’s easier for yahoo to process this information. So, the challenge is to be able to understand all coming information and be able to process it right, so the results in a search will be better.

It’s a cycle. If we’ve got a better system to understand people, SE can give better answers, and thanks to this, SE improve again too.

This is the reason of creating yahoo! answers. You make a question and you’ve got a reply within minutes… A reply make by an user (bored at home, probably). This is an easy way to know something based on the experiences of the people, but it’s also a way to analysize this information. So, in Yahoo! answers, the search engine are the people themselves.

- Considering these statements, the main idea is to give an incentive to people to take part in this system. It can be just for being part, for being the best, for being well-known among the community,…

It’s well-known that an opinion from 1.000.000 people is better than just a opinion of 3 experts.

- Another challenge is to process correctly the webslang.

We can conclude that in just 19 years Internet is the reflect of the society and the economy of the world.